If I had brought this trouble to Sokrates, he would have helped not only me, but have been in the way to help Lysis too. But it was all entangled in my mind with things I could bring to no one.
It was while I was away on patrol that Strymon had first called upon my father. Since I was of age he had troubled us little, so that I had not kept him in mind. It was only by degrees that the mischief he was doing appeared. First my father brought out the rolls of the farm, and had nothing but fault to find with them. It was plain where he had got his misinformation, and I soon cleared it up; yet I still felt him resentful. Again I heard that Strymon had called while I was out in the City; and just afterwards my father charged me with keeping bad company. As soon as Phaedo’s name came up, I knew whom to thank. “Sir,” I said. “Phaedo is a Melian. You know better than I what choice he had. His breeding is as good as ours, and he is living now as befits it. You surely won’t judge a prisoner by the lot that falls to him in war?” This went too near the bone. He grew angry; and, naming Sokrates, used a phrase of him which out of respect to the dead I will not set down, even after these years.
A little while after, I found my mother crying at her loom. No one was there, and I begged her to tell me her trouble. She shook her head, and made no answer. I drew near to her, till our garments touched, and I felt against my face the outermost threads of her hair. I had meant to embrace her, but confusion fell on me; I held my breath hard, and was still. She kept her head turned away, trying to hide her tears. At last I said, “Mother, what shall we do?”
She shook her head again, and turning to me a little, laid her hand on my breast. When I covered it with both of mine, I could feel through it the beating of my heart. She began to draw her hand gently away from me; suddenly, with a swift and violent force, she thrust me off. Then I too heard the sound of my father’s stick outside. I stood as one dazed; I could neither bear to stay nor fly; till I heard her voice, sending me on some errand about the house. As I went, I heard him asking her sharply what ailed her.
After this, I used to see his eyes on me, following me as I moved about the room. It seemed clear that he thought we complained together against him. There was only wretchedness at home, and I spent all my time in the City. While walking in the colonnade, I fell in with Charmides. I was now so far from the green youth he had courted, that I could take a man’s pleasure in his conversation; for his light manner hid an accomplished mind. We took two or three turns together, while he told me that Sokrates had taken him to task for wasting his wits on idle talk, when he might be applying them usefully to the City’s business. Unhappily Lysis saw us together, and took it very ill. I defended myself with indignation. Yet I did myself more than justice, and him less; for it had been plain to me that Charmides had not grown indifferent to my person, and that it was not to talk politics he had sought me out.
I had enough of them at home. My father’s foot had healed; he was beginning to get about the City again, and to pick up his old friendships, together with some new ones that dismayed me. All his moderation was gone; I heard him express himself against the democrats with such bitterness as I had scarcely heard within the walls of our house before.
I took my concern to Lysis, during a time of peace between us. He said, “Let it pass. Can you wonder only the past seems good to him? A man getting on doesn’t see that the sweet taste he remembers was the taste of his youth and strength.”—“But Lysis, he isn’t forty-five.”—“Let it pass. He can’t choose but be bitter when you think of how the Army was lost. The commons let Alkibiades charm them into a venture which only he had any chance of succeeding in. Then they let his enemies frighten them into transferring the command. I still think the answer is to teach the people better; but I’ve not paid the price that your father has.” We were happy that day, and more than commonly tender with one another, as was apt to happen now between our quarrels.
But at home, the clouds always came back after the rain. I, who had slept soundly even the night before the Games, used to lie awake, afraid of I knew not what, knowing only that things did not stand still, and were not getting better. I did not understand myself. Once, after a quarrel with Lysis, I went to a brothel, which I had never done except that once in Corinth. But it sickened me beyond reason.
One day, a little after supper-time, I heard my father shouting for Sostias, and no reply. My heart sank; I slipped off to search, knowing where to look. Sure enough, Sostias lay drunk in the wine-store. I shook and cursed him, but could not bring him to himself. Since he had got older, this happened once in every month or two. Of course I had always beaten him, but perhaps not as hard as I ought. He was willing-hearted, and fond of us. I did not know then that he had done it quite lately, while I was at war. He was frightened of my father, which had brought back his clumsiness worse than ever; I suppose he drank to pluck his spirits up. Just as I was hauling him to his feet, my father found us, and said to him, “I warned you what to expect if I found you drunk again. You have brought it on yourself.”
He thrashed Sostias with more strength than I had known was in him, and locked him in the empty store by the stable. When night came, I asked to let him out. “No,” said my father. “We should have him slipping off in the dark. I am selling him to the mines tomorrow, as I warned him last time.”
I was too much taken aback to answer. Sostias had been with us since I could remember. No one we knew had ever sold a house-slave to Laureion, except for some gross brutishness. At length I said, “He’s not young, sir. In a silver mine he won’t live long.”—“That depends on what he is made of,” my father said.
Later, in the quiet of the night, I heard my mother pleading with him. He answered her angrily, and she fell silent. The night was hot and close; I lay tossing on my bed, thinking of the old days not long gone, when our little make-shifts had been a joke in which old Sostias had shared. My childhood too I remembered, and how he had hidden me from the Rhodian woman when she wanted to beat me. At last I could bear it no longer. I got softly up, and fetched some food from the larder. As I stole up to the outhouse door, I heard a strange fumbling noise within. I opened. Moonlight shining in through a small barred window showed me Sostias turning to stare. In his hands was a rope, which he had been throwing at the beam above.
There was a short painful scene, in which we both shed tears. I am not sure what I had intended at the outset; perhaps only to give him some supper, and say farewell to him. “Sostias,” I said, “if I forget to lock up after me, you know where to go. You may meet horsemen in the hills. Hide till you hear them talk. If they speak Doric, tell them what you’re doing and they’ll let you through. You can get work in Megara, or Thebes.” He knelt, and wept upon my hands. “Master, what will he do to you for this?”—“No matter; at least he can’t sell me to Laureion. Keep off the drink, now; and good luck.”
Next morning I dressed with some care, to put a good face on it, and waited about the house. My father was out already; he came back bringing the mine agent with him, which I had not bargained for. He opened the door in the presence of this man, who, being disappointed (for the scarcity of slaves was increasing), grumbled at his vain journey, and spoke insolently to my father. He scarcely replied; it was as if he did not hear. As the man left, I felt a cold sweat break out upon my palms.